Harvard Heart Letter articles from March 2004

Harvard Heart Letter archives from March 2004

Protecting the heart while controlling blood sugar.
March 1, 2004... Guidelines help define and refine the use of two diabetes drugs that could be a boon for people who also have heart disease. Like coffee and cream, diabetes and heart disease often travel together. It's a fact that chronically high levels...

Possible plaque buster offers new hope.
March 1, 2004... HDL could become a treatment for heart disease. E very year or so, news writers get to knock themselves out on a cure-for-heart-disease story. One such story touted a lab-made form of "turbocharged HDL" (good cholesterol) that acts like...

Gender bender.
March 1, 2004... Awareness that heart disease affects women in different ways than men can help women get the treatments they need and pay more attention to prevention. Why can't a woman be more like a man?" mused Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady....

12 tips for safe travel with heart disease.
March 1, 2004... Vacations can be great for the body and soul. Make sure your next one is good for the heart, too. Ahh, vacation. Peaceful blue-green water lapping on a white-sand beach, the hushed calm of a majestic cathedral, a rocky mountain hike,...

When the natural pacemaker loses its groove.
March 1, 2004... Here's how to recognize and treat a sick sinus. Sick sinus syndrome sounds like a head cold that won't go away. It's actually an aggravating heart problem that is responsible for half of the 200,000 pacemaker implantations each year in the...

Heart Beat; Keeping clots from mechanical heart valves.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... When a heart valve stops working properly, one replacement option is a mechanical valve. These last longer than biological valves, but they also tend to generate small blood clots that can lead to strokes. That's why people who get a mechanical...

Heart Beat; Breakthrough in treating cardiac arrest.(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Move over, adrenaline. It's high time for a hormone called vasopressin to take its place to help restart a stopped heart. That's the word from a study comparing the effects of vasopressin to those of epinephrine (a synthetic form of adrenaline)...

Ask the Doctor; Do treadmill tests detect heart disease in women?
March 1, 2004... Q My wife has had all of the symptoms described in a study showing that women have different heart attack warning signs than men. I urged her to get a stress test but she says her doctor told her that the treadmill test isn't good at diagnosing...

Ask the Doctor; Can I get omega-3 fats from foods other than fish?(Brief Article)
March 1, 2004... Q Reports that omega-3 fats are good for the heart make me want to get more in my diet. I am allergic to fish, and my allergist told me not to take fish oil capsules. What are my options? A Tuna, mackerel, and other fatty fish are rich in...